You have to admit that if a newbie's goal is to learn to fly, then an ARF is a much easier path.
My grandaughter's fiance had a desire to fly, so he started with ARFs.
I am encouraging him to build something from a kit, so he can develop the skills and love
of building that I have. He currently doesn't have a place for a workshop, so I am offering
my space, tools, know-how and encouragement. We will see if that approach works.
Most of our club members fly ARFs, but there are still a few of us who build for the love of it.
I would encourage all of you to mentor a young person who shows any interest at all.
I have to say that, if the planes available today were around 50 years ago when I began
building, I would have jumped on the chance to be able to fly without the experience of spending my paper route money on supplies, only to have my new creation perform poorly,
because I did not have the advantage of the help of an experienced modeler.

In fact the question: How do we bring model building back?and related to what date in the past?
What is wromg with all wood construction and wooden engine bearers? Silk and dope and spray painted, 35 Mc radio without expo of 30 years old combined with analog servo's?

One of the best tales in aeromodelling dates back a while, in a sort of response to Cees' posts.

Once upon a time, the great nations of aeromodelling all ganged up on some new upstart country that wanted to pollute the greatest model aircraft flying competition of the day by using a terrible new material rather than the existing construction methods and materials.

The existing methods and materials were spruce and wire.

The event was the Wakefield Trophy - for free flight rubber powered models, on account of they were the pinnacle at the time.

The evil new material - balsa wood

and the upstart, out to destroy civilisation as it was known?

The USA...

Lovely Taurus, Cees. That era of competition was great - more so that even regular folk could afford to buy a suitable model and compete. One day, will unearth my plan project for a large scale model of the 'Kaos' that doesn't smell funny after landing - oddly enough, the file is titled 'K-E-os'.

My main problem with a finish involving any kind of paint or dope is that my dear wife is highly allergic to paint fumes...

Apart from house paint, oddly enough

The great thing about 2.4GHz? It can be sold to hobby buyers en mass, and they won't be shot down by the guys in the next streets who just bought the same product.

The Taurus is painted in normal enamel paint (one component!) as we all buy in the DIY shop to paint "internal" in our house, but not "water based".
Is your wife allergic for that too?
BTW about 500 flights one time overhauled but all red and white paint of the wings f.e. just as the silk and dope of the wings is still original.

Cees

BTW I did upload some videos on Youtube, my name over there Taurusflyer1.

When I design a plane I never need "color" in the formulas, so it probably only cost time, adds weight, disturbs the boundary layer and reduces the content of my wallet.

With other words, we all have our preferences to give our model a personnal look and THAT'S MODELING. result is, all my models are covered with silk and dope and only replica's or scale have some paint sprayed over it.

Have clubs require new members or any member have at least 1 build under their belt. I think when I got into the sport building my first plane helped me to learn not just about the aircraft I was building, but why it needed dihedral and a bit of washout, and what exactly those two words meant. It taught me the difference between the leading edge and trailing edges, and why a wing generated lift. Flying is not about pointing a model to the skies and keeping it there, it's so much more. Building also taught me how to think in sneaky ways, by this I mean say you have a hard landing. You don't need to ask "what's the best way to reattach a tail section that broke in two at the fuse. A few popsicle sticks and some zap later and you have a whole plane again.

I'm currently breathing new life into my fathers retired 30 year old trainer by doing a glow to elec conversion, but to do this I needed to tear it down to bare wood to see how the airframe was, had I no build experience it would have been worthless.

I do plan on aquiring a few foamies, let's face it they look cool, but reality is when someone at they field says "nice bird" I won't have that feeling of pride that I'd have had I built it. For me building is as much the sport as piloting.

In response to MODE ONE;
That's the problem I've been having...I have a BUSA 1/4 scale J-3,with an OS 91 4 cycle.We have the throttle rigged to only turn 4000-4200 RPMs wide open.14 x 6 wood prop .
When we show up at the field,The 3d'rs cannot understand why there isn't a DA150 on it.The pattern flyers want to know why it's not super charged,And the Electric fliers offer to show me how to spend $2500 for a 'Real propulsion system.'
I taxi out,and turn into the wind,firewall the throttle and wait.Eventually the tail'l come up and some time later,you're not always sure when,or sometimes,even IF,it'll fly.But it always does.At about 100',we throttle back to about 3000 rpm,and fly on the wing.
Only a very few understand. Me'n the CUB do.

Dereck,you think as I do,I believe.
I'm so into helping newbies,that I resorted to starting a couple of threads to see if I can generate interest in some new comers.
Got one so far..You guys need to check out MIDNITERIDER' blogs.He didn't have enough money to do it fancy,so he grabbed up some trashed airplnes from the field and said what the heck!
One of his solutions was a clamp made from a shoestring and a pencil.
Off to a jerky start,he repaired a Cub with some ply and balsa.I watched carefully and saw the want-to.He wasn't going to be stopped!We helped him out with some advice and extra parts.
As soon as the wind stops,he'll test fly it.Now he and a friend are learning to BUILD a kit together.The whole kaboodle.And I have no doubt He'll succeed.
We're about all that.

Granted, which is why I suggested they offer the plans when they discontinue the ARF.

For that matter any aircraft manufacturer should release plans to public domain upon discontinuation, the likelyhood is slim to none. We don't know for sure the plans they are using are "theirs" they may just have a license to mass produce it.

In response to MODE ONE;
,........turn into the wind,firewall the throttle and wait.Eventually the tail'l come up and some time later,you're not always sure when,or sometimes,even IF,it'll fly.But it always does.At about 100',we throttle back to about 3000 rpm,and fly on the wing.
Only a very few understand. Me'n the CUB do.

So what if the manufacturers doesn't want to produce plans, I don't want to build something that are available in abundance and not closely as admirable as a scratch build , but I do want to repair them, either for myself or to help a buddy.

Repairs are easy, especially if you're a "builder", what I try and do is to get all the parts made for repairs in digital form ( I encourage the use of my cnc router) for future use.

Maybe if more of us could do something like this and share it on a central library we could get some of the plane in a type of "plan" format, even if it is just bits and pieces.

Maybe if more of us could do something like this and share it on a central library we could get some of the plane in a type of "plan" format, even if it is just bits and pieces.

That would make it easier to reproduce say a few ribs that were crushed. If I ever crush the wing, my model is done for. I no longer have the plans and without those I will be unable to make the rib templates I'd need for repairs/rebuild.